Georgia and Russia going to war?

Politics International Politics
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[quote=“kelake”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]President Bushs’ comments were strong, however at this point, there have been no suggestions of consequences, sanctions or economic reprisals against Russia for their actions.[/quote]With his record I doubt anyone gives much credence to anything he says.[/quote]Kelake -
Your “doubts” re:the credence given to statements by the President of the United States is given its appropriate due.

Some actual Georgian news sources - one of the editors of this newapaper is an American from Alaska. He has been wounded and is currntly in a Russian hospital…sources report.

The Messenger

and its ‘blog’:

The Georgian Messenger blog

Georgian Leader Vows No Surrender

And, an interesting item from The Tehran Times, datelined Israel:

Israel mulls halting arms shipments to Georgia
"[i]TEL AVIV (middleeast.online) – The Israeli foreign ministry has recommended a complete halt to the sale of arms to Georgia for fear of spurring Russia to increase its support of Syria and other country, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday.

The Haaretz newspaper quoted an unnamed senior official as saying that Israel would try to remain neutral as Russia and Georgia drift towards all-out war over the fate of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

““Israel needs to be very careful and sensitive these days,”” the official said. ““The Russians are selling many arms to Iran and Syria and there is no need to offer them an excuse to sell even more advanced weapons.””

The decision to halt the sale of all arms to Georgia must now go to the defense ministry, which is expected to make a decision in the coming days, Haaretz said[/i]"…excerpt)

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This has nothing to do with the credence of the individual in the Oval Office. Russia doesn’t care what the US says because the US is powerless to stop it. We certainly aren’t going to war over Georgia, nor are we likely to push for a trade embargo that nobody else would honor anyways. As TC noted, there is absolutely no sign of any serious action being taken over this.

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Fucking pansy-arsed Democrats . . . oh wait!

HG

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They must be having a good laugh in the Kremlin over Bush’s scolding. I wonder what the Russian word for hypocrite is.

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Meanwhile, Conde-lies-a-lot is on vacation.

afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5glS … wJk-igypAQ

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Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation - and I don’t think Georgia was right to reconquer two regions that had voted to leave the country, once Russian troops start to invade Georgia past those regions the US will have to respond in some way since Georgia is a US ally/tributary state and not doing so will make all their other allies jump ship.

What’s interesting is what they will do, since they presumably don’t want to fight Russia head on. I think they’ll send troops somewhere to signify to the Russians that they won’t abandon Georgia. Maybe Turkey or the Black Sea.

47

well, when Russia take over Georgia to control the oil supply to Europe in the same way as it has a stranglehold on the gas supply (and it is bound to be unopposed), the only recourse is to neutralise this advantage by reducing the demand for said oil and gas, and fortunately Europe is the most advanced along that track of any region on earth. that’d pull the rug out from under their feet, and make them face up to the fact that they really are just a marginal ex-superpower state.

Russia will perhaps invade other border states that don’t yet have NATO membership, to prevent them from falling into the NATO lap, so perhaps it is time to fast-track those membership processes and get in there before Russia does.

Russia has planned this for a long time, probably right down to engineering the political circumstances that suckered Sakaashvili into acting. one doesn’t mobilise that many troops overnight and launch a ‘counteratttack’ without months of preplanning and prepositioning. good timing too, what with so much of the US expeditionary forces bogged down in Iraq, and little in the way of spare heavy naval forces to redeploy.

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It was still incredibly dumb of Sakaashvili to do what he did, though. Plus, it’s wrong, damnit. South Ossetia had a referendum to leave Georgia. Sending in troops to reconquer them afterwards just ain’t right.

The best outcome I think would be for Georgia to join Nato and for South Ossetia to either become independent or join Russia, based on another referendum. If it stays independent, it should be a DMZ between Georgia and Russia.

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Yes, Russia does appear to have planned this incursion/invasion for quite a few years. Russia has been aiding terrorists who have been attacking various targets in Georgia and using South Ossetia as a base for their operations. This is not a new development.
What is new is that Pres. Sakaashvili made his move to attack these terrs. It was a play right into Russian hands.

Do some background on this and you’ll turn-up lots of stories about these terrorist attacks and who supports them - Russia. Which frankly, is a good source of support in that region.

This, South Ossetia, is not really a ‘break-a-way’ province. Russian invaded and has been occupying this areas since 1992. Note also, that this played well with the South Ossetians who have a history of shooting at Georgians. Sounds contradictory, but it must be looked at ion the context of the overall area.

[quote]South Ossetia is not, as some have suggested, tit-for-tat payback for American and European recognition, over Russian objections, of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Russia has been “at war” with democratic Georgia for some time. Driven to distraction by Mr. Saakashvili’s assertiveness and Georgia’s desire to join NATO, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin first tried to bring the country to its knees through economic warfare beginning in 2005. He cut off access to Russian markets, expelled Georgians from Russia, quadrupled the price of Russian energy to Georgia, and severed transport links.

Georgia failed to collapse. …

Unable to bend Tbilisi to its will, the Kremlin in recent months ratcheted up the pressure and provocations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia – reinforcing Russian forces and Russian-backed paramilitaries, violating Georgian air space with Russian jets, shelling Georgian villages and outposts, and passing a resolution to treat the two provinces administratively as part of Russia. Starting in 2004, Russia began issuing passports to the residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a fact that today serves as one of the main pretexts for the ferocity of Moscow’s military campaign. …

Over the longer term, it is essential that Russia’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies be broken. The EU’s failure to get its house in order by diversifying energy supplies and insisting that Russia, in turn, open up its own market, has created a situation in which Moscow rightly believes it has significant leverage over the policy positions of key countries such as Germany.

It was Germany that led the opposition at the most recent NATO summit in April against a Membership Action Plan for Georgia, emphasizing that a country that has unresolved conflicts should not be allowed to enter NATO.
(Excerpt) Wall Street Journal…[/quote]

Russia has been setting this hand up for play for quite a long time.

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Breaking news:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev orders halt to military operations against Georgia, Interfax reports.

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Good news.

I wonder how much further humiliation Russia’s going to inflict, and how much land these provinces will take with them.

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Georgia’s getting some very public support from its friends.

[quote=“McClatchy”]Russia declared a ceasefire in Georgia on Tuesday after a five-day war that left Georgia’s military in tatters and Russia seemingly on the verge of reasserting old Soviet-style authority over its neighbors.

But Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and the heads of state of five other nations that had once been dominated by the Soviet Union vowed never to concede the independence they’ve enjoyed since 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved.

“The entire world is with us,” Saakashvili told a crowd of thousands that thronged downtown Tbilisi in a late night rally.

On the podium with him were the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.

“We know that if other peoples’ freedom is threatened … then it’s not long before our freedom is threatened,” Estonian President Toomas Hendrik said.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski told the roaring crowd that Russia can’t return to the days when the Soviet Union could have its way militarily with smaller countries on its borders.

“That time has ended forever,” Kaczynski said. “We are here to say that we are not afraid.”[/quote]

I wonder how W. is feeling about the situation in Georgia. He’s stated that he would never abandon the Kurds the way his old man did, and yet… He’s also been fond of comparing himself to Truman, but this looks a whole look more like Eisenhower encouraging the Hungarians to rise up, then standing aside as the tanks rolled in. Time for a new round of NATO expansion? Maybe the Russians will turn off the taps on Europe’s oil and gas supplies this winter. Fun and games.

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It looks like Russia gets the gold, with the silver and bronze going to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Better luck next time, Georgia and the USA!

(Not to mention Adjaria…)

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This is interesting. Who would have thought the Bush administration would have such respect for international and multilateral institutions?

[quote=“Washington Post”]The Bush administration suggested yesterday that an apparent cease-fire in Georgia came about because Moscow feared it would be banished from Western-dominated international economic and political institutions if it did not stop its “aggression” in the former Soviet republic.

“Russia has one foot into the international community . . . and one foot that is not,” a senior administration official said. Membership in institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the Group of Eight major industrialized nations “is what is at stake when Russia engages in behavior that looks like it came from another time.”
[…]
Russia rejected the idea that it had agreed to the cease-fire out of fear of international ostracism. The United States “is as much interested in the relations with Russia as Russia is in the relations with the United States,” said Vitali Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations.[/quote]

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Aren’t you impressed that a couple of days ago the Russians were talking about deposing the Georgian government and hanging them for war crimes a la Saddam, but after a quick shouting match between Putin and Bush at the Olympics they seem to have backed off? Whatever threats the US delivered certainly seemed to have done the trick. I thought they’d have to abandon the Georgians completely since their position was so weak.

Nice one, W, whatever you said worked. Even better no US or allied troops need to fight Russia.

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So we don’t quite get to add Georgia to the list of fatal broken US promises list. That’s a relief!

HG

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If the US indeed convinced the Russians to back off, I would be impressed. But I haven’t yet seen anything suggesting that’s the case.

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Apart from the fact that yesterday Russian forces were advancing deep into Georgia and Putin said

shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=72673

Then the US said “there were signs that Russia was going to depose the elected government of Georgia” and the press filmed Bush arguing with Putin in Beijing.

And then the very next day the Russian President announces that Russia will stop the attack? And later we hear that a truce has been agreed?

Apart from that nothing.

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Bush arguing with Putin in Beijing? I don’t think so. Putin flew out as soon as this all errupted.

HG

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Which is what one would expect in either case, right?

In other words, if the US did have anything to do with it, my guess is that the non-negotiable starting place for whatever discussion took place was: “Listen Russia, we know that the one outcome that you CANNOT accept, is the loss of face you would suffer if it looks like you stopped because we told you to. So if you do come around on this thing, you have our guarantee that we will not turn this from a PR victory to a PR humiliation for you by putting it out there that we stopped you.”

Result: Jaboney will see nothing suggesting that the US smacked Russia down, regardless of what actually happened.